


Day 15: Christmas Party

by ConsultingPurplePants



Series: 25 Days of Fic-Mas (originally posted to tumblr) [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Party, Drunkenness, M/M, Moonshine, john is drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingPurplePants/pseuds/ConsultingPurplePants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is very drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 15: Christmas Party

**Author's Note:**

> These just keep getting longer and I am not sure why.

John is watching Sherlock argue animatedly with two young officers across the room when Lestrade approaches him with two shots of clear liquid in his hands. John turns towards him, confused.

“What’s this for, then?” John briefly wonders if Lestrade’s done something to the shots, then shakes his head and takes one when he remembers that not everyone is Sherlock.

“It’s a Christmas party, mate. We’re meant to be having fun, not swooning over long legs over there,” Lestrade answers, perfectly straight faced. “Come on, then.” He knocks back his shot, and John follows suit, immediately sputtering.

“Christ, Greg, what was _that_?”

“Anderson’s uncle makes moonshine, apparently.” Greg is smiling broadly now, apparently finding John’s sputtering hilarious. “What’re you doing over here by yourself, anyway?”

John gathers his wits about him and glances back over at Sherlock. “Wondering if I should drag Sherlock away from those two before one of them clocks him one.”

Greg raises his eyebrows suggestively. “And that’s the expression you have on your face when you’re wondering that?”

John whirls back towards Greg. “What are you on about?”

Greg rolls his eyes. “John, anyone with half a brain can see you’re gone on him. I could practically wipe the drool off your chin.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not gone on me, so there you go.” He feels quite floaty as he looks down at his empty glass, suddenly horrified. Greg follows his gaze and smiles knowingly.

“Hang on a minute, John.” He disappears back into the crowd.

John turns back towards Sherlock, trying not to be obvious about it. Sherlock is no longer arguing with the young officers, which is a relief, but he’s standing alone with a devious expression on his face, while the two officers are in the corner scheming with their heads together. John is sure this is going to end badly, but Lestrade returns before he can make up his mind to do something about it.

Lestrade shoves another shot into his hand. “There you go, mate!”

John’s jaw drops. “Greg, are you trying to get me drunk?”

Lestrade motions for him to take the shot, so he does, the moonshine burning the whole way down. Lestrade does the same.

“Yes!” He grins triumphantly.

Whatever is in the moonshine, it’s strong. John is definitely feeling floaty, now. “Do I wanna know why?”

Lestrade leans in conspirationally. “Gimme one good reason why you shouldn’t go over there right now and kiss that mad bastard.”

John feels very warm and very uncomfortable, now. “You’re being ridiculous, Greg.”

“Am I? ‘Cause like I said, anyone with half a brain can see you two pining for each other.”

John takes a moment to consider his next words. It doesn’t help that his head feels all… muzzy. If that’s even a word. He blinks several times to focus. “Greg, we live together, and while I may have been in love with him for the better part of five years, he’s never once shown any interest towards me. I’ll take what I can get, ta.”

Lestrade is looking at him in total shock, so John replays what he’s just said in his head. It feels like déjà-vu when he looks down at his empty shot in horror. What is in this stuff?

“John… Just… Hang on.” Lestrade disappears into the crowd again, leaving John frozen, staring down at his glass.

John takes a chance and glances over at Sherlock again, just to make sure he hasn’t heard anything compromising. He’s serious when he says he’ll take what he can get. He’d rather live with the love of his life and not have him know than have to live without him, and if that’s how it’s going to be, so be it. He carefully composes a statement to give to Lestrade when he returns, just to be sure the alcohol doesn’t fuck him up this time. He’s still muttering it under his breath when a shot gets shoved into his hand, and he knocks it back automatically. Shit. His mind goes blank, and when Lestrade asks again, “John. Seriously. Give me one good reason why you two aren’t snogging right now,” he has absolutely no answer, mental or verbal.

He looks helplessly at Lestrade, down in horror at his glass again, and when he looks up again Lestrade has his arms crossed in front of him and is nodding towards Sherlock. “Go on, then.” He grins.

On autopilot, John crosses the room, dodging plastered police constables (apparently the moonshine was a hit) until he reaches his destination: long legs. No, mad bastard. John shakes his head, trying fruitlessly to clear it. Sherlock. That’s it. Sherlock.

Mad bastard looks down at him, clearly confused as to what he’s doing there (and probably about why he’s so god damn red). “John?”

“Sherlock!” John thinks he’s slurring. Lestrade is probably having the time of his life, right now.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock seems to have read something in his face that he doesn’t understand, and his confusion is plain in his eyes even to John’s completely plastered brain.

“I love you!” John manages, and he reaches up to pull Sherlock’s shocked face down towards his own. There’s a moment of rather messy, desperate snogging (the moonshine seems to have taken control of his tongue) before Sherlock pulls away.

“John. What are you doing?” He looks hurt, verging on angry now, and John wonders what he’s done wrong. He sticks to his guns.

“I love you, Sherlock!” He manages a few more seconds of snogging before Sherlock manages to pull away again, this time taking him by the shoulders.

“You’re drunk, John. Incredibly so. I’m taking you home.” He drags John out by the shoulders, supporting him as if John’s limp has returned (actually, his leg does feel a bit funny), but not before John manages to catch Lestrade’s eye. Lestrade is laughing, head thrown back as he gives John two very drunk thumbs up. 

***

When John wakes up the next morning, he’s alone in his bed, and his head hurts like someone has been hitting him with a pick-axe all night. If he disliked Anderson before, this headache has turned that dislike into pure, unadulterated hatred. He tries to sit up, but as he does so the sheets make a rustling sound and it feels like a thousand tiny nails have been jammed into his brain all at once. He freezes halfway to a sitting position to wait for it to pass. Once he manages to sit on the bed, he spots a glass of water and a couple of paracetamol on his bedside table, and last night comes crashing back over him. He puts his head in his hands and groans, the sound stabbing him in the temples again. He’s going to have to kill Lestrade. They’d been friends, it had been nice, but now he’s going to have to kill him. He has no idea what he’s going to face when he gets downstairs, but if Sherlock makes him move out, Greg is going to house and feed him for the rest of his life. He’ll owe him that much. John reaches over to the bedside table to take the paracetamol, then gives himself another ten minutes to wait for the pounding in his head to turn into more of a background punching. He stands up and directs his creaky body down the stairs.

He had not had the faintest idea how Sherlock would react, but he definitely wasn’t expecting this. Sherlock is sitting at the microscope, looking perfectly calm as he switches out the slides on the stage. He’s in his dressing gown and pyjamas, and shows no signs of a horrible hangover, probably because he hadn’t had any of the moonshine last night.

“Morning, John,” he calls out absently as he readjusts the focus. John tries to push away the jackhammers in his head to take a better look at him, and yes, there it is: something’s not quite right. Sherlock looks... scared?

“Morning, Sherlock. Um… how are you?” He’s going to have to tread carefully, here. Sherlock looks up at him and his eyes go into deduction mode, scanning over his face with laser focus. He heaves a (staged?) sigh, then shoots out his deductions like bullets from a machine gun.

“Much better than you, as I can tell that you’ve got a headache that is easily at a 5 or 6 on the standard pain scale you doctors are used to, but then again, being a doctor, you should’ve known to drink more water last night. That moonshine you were drinking was approximately 60% alcohol, by my calculations of everyone’s state of inebriety last night, so three shots of that would definitely be sufficient to cause at least some sort of amnesia, but I can see from your wince just now that you remember perfectly well what happened last night. So, we’re going to have to do this the hard way, but here is my side of the deal: no, John, I would never ask you to move out, as I consider you indispensable to my work, but I will be deleting last night’s incident from my mind palace and I strongly suggest you at least attempt to do the same, if only so that we may continue this relationship unimpeded. I harbour no ill feelings towards you after last night’s mockery, although an apology would be nice.” He then continues examining the slide as though he’s said nothing of importance.

John, however, is stuck on _indispensable to my work_ , and is now fuming. He’s not sure what angers him more, the fact that Sherlock had called it _my work_ , not _our work_ , or the fact that he’s apparently not important to Sherlock in any other capacity. It takes him a few moments to calm down sufficiently to decide which part of the hateful sentence he’d like to address first, then another few to formulate a complete sentence through the ice picks embedded in his brain.

“That’s all, then? I’m only here for the work?” he spits.

Sherlock looks up, startled. “Of course you are, John. What else would I need you for?” He has the nerve to sound genuinely surprised.

John has his coat on and is out the door faster than he can say I need some air. He stalks down Baker Street, furious, until he reaches Regent’s Park, where he continues stalking up and down the paths until he calms down enough to walk like a normal person. He knows he’s making a big deal out of nothing, especially since this was precisely what he’d told Lestrade last night, but it still hurts like hell to have it said out loud. Sometimes, he’d thought he and Sherlock were on the verge of something more, but this? He’d never expected this cold, outright, completely oblivious rejection. He collapses on a bench near the entrance of the park, replaying the scene in his head.

Through the cloud of fury enveloping his brain, he forces himself to focus on what Sherlock had said. He was planning on deleting this, which was unsurprising, but his last sentence sounded more and more odd the more John thought about it. What did he mean, last night’s mockery? Had Sherlock thought...

John sits bolt upright on the bench. Sherlock had thought he was making fun of him. John had thought Sherlock had deduced his feelings ages ago and had simply chosen not to act on them, but what if he had genuinely not known? John had been pretty hammered. Lestrade had been guffawing in the background, which had definitely helped to make this all look like a big joke, and Sherlock… Sherlock thought his best friend was mocking him in front of all of New Scotland Yard.

John puts his face in his hands and groans for the second time that morning. Moonshine had made him make one terrible decision, and now that he was sober, he was going to make a good one.

***

John opens the door to the flat again half an hour later, hanging his coat calmly on its hook next to Sherlock’s Belstaff. Sherlock is still sitting in the exact same position John had left him in. He seems to be somewhere in the depths of his mind palace rather than at their kitchen table, confirming what John had started to suspect: Sherlock is scared.

John takes a deep breath, then marches over to the table and turns Sherlock’s chair towards him, nearly jolting him out of it.

“John! What are you…” Sherlock trails off when he gets a good look at John’s face. He immediately straightens up.

“I trust you’ve taken the time to understand that our current arrangement is for the best and…” He trails off again when John puts two fingers on his lips. His eyes cross as he tries to see them, and John smiles.

“Sherlock, I want to start again. Is that alright?” Sherlock uncrosses his eyes.  
“Start what again, John?” He seems almost determined not to understand and John huffs a frustrated laugh.

“I love you, Sherlock,” he starts, then continues when Sherlock looks just as shocked as last night. “Yes, I can say that sober.”

Sherlock laughs nervously, but doesn’t say anything. John takes this as a cue to go on.

“I have loved you for nearly five years now. Can I kiss you, please?” He reaches down and gently cups Sherlock’s face in his hands.

Sherlock still looks shocked, but he nods when John brushes his thumbs across his cheekbones. John leans down and gently touches his lips to Sherlock’s, waiting for a reaction. Sherlock gives a tiny sigh and leans ever so slightly forwards, and John allows his lips to part slightly as he deepens the kiss. He pulls back before it gets any more heated and hugs Sherlock into his chest, smiling so hard that his face starts to cramp.

Sherlock’s arms come up to pull him even closer, and just as John thinks this can’t get any better, Sherlock murmurs into his chest, “I’ve loved you for five years, too.”


End file.
